Wednesday, July 29, 2009

These guys either (i) are so morally blind that they never realized they were being bought and paid for, or (ii) have been at the public trough so long and have such contempt for us proles that they believe we'll accept any absurd thing they say. Having been caught, here's what they now are saying about how they were bought and paid for by one of the major players in the subprime mortgage casino that wrecked our economy.

The hard unadorned fact is that all we get from our rulers, who now have dropped any pretense of being public servants, is the mushroom treatment -- they keep us in the dark and cover us with manure.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Lest anyone have any doubt about the state of the BOM (big old media) in the U.S., they should look at the post following this one and ask why the facts set forth in the linked reports were uncovered and reported only by Investors Business Daily, a financial publication. Apparently none of the many curiously uncurious journalists at The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, CBS News, NBC News, ABC News, CNN, etc. etc. etc. were willing or able to take the time to read the bill and report anything about it other than what its proponents are saying.

Those pushing for enactment of the less than universal health care bill being gussied up in the House of Reprehensibles are being substantially less than forthright about it.

One of their claims is that the proposed legislation would preserve the right of individuals to obtain private health insurance. However, Investors Business Daily has uncovered a provision embedded in the bill that would prohibit private insurers from issuing new policies after the effective date of the legislation. As this report makes clear, that provision would be the death knell for private health insurance coverage.

In addition, this other Investors Business Dailyreport shows that proponents of the plan to give the government monopoly powers over every aspect of our health care, also are hiding facts relevant to the debate that would further undermine the appeal of their position and strengthen the case against enactment of the proposed legislation.

Monday, July 20, 2009

The assault on Sarah Palin is without precedent . . . almost. Every aspect of her personal and political life is under constant attack, and similar attacks have been and continue to be aimed at every member of her family.

To understand the unremitting frenzy against Ms. Palin one need only look at its source -- members of our corrupt and depraved elite institutions. The sources are, to put it bluntly, un-American. They are pooh bahs who identify with, prefer, and seek to emulate Europeans, whom they view as being more cultured, more sophisticated, and possessing finer sensibilities.

They reject American exceptionalism and view the country as crass and vulgar, and recoil with horror at the accurate description voiced by the Benjamin Franklin character in the musical 1776:

We've spawned a new race here -- rougher,simpler, more violent, more enterprising, andless refined. We're a new nationality

Thus they have nothing in common with ordinary American citizens but the description fits Ms. Palin perfectly. She is the quintessential American frontier woman who embodies the description. She posseses and demonstrates great capabilities, character, and fortitude, along with extraordinary gifts and an extraordinary record of achievements.

The extraordinary gift that gives rise to the hatred and fear underlying the attacks against her is Ms. Palin's ability to communicate, connect and bond with ordinary citizens who make up a great majority of the country's electorate.

The very idea of such a person presuming to participate as a leader in the nation's governance is a threat to the oligarchs who gather in the salons in Georgetown, Manhattan's upper east side, much of Boston and San Francisco, Bel Air and Beverly Hills, and other such enclaves of privilege and ease. (Adding to this is an emotional reaction against her among the population's sexually inadequate women and metro sexual men to whom she is a living rebuke.)

Consequently, the denizens of those posh perches have concluded that Ms. Palin must be destroyed as a threatening political force, and they have set about attempting to do just that, utilizing the tools that they have at their disposal -- the nation's ensconced political elite, academicians, and media. Ms. Palin and everyone connected with her is viciously and continually attacked, criticized, and pilloried at every opportunity in an unremitting effort to diminish her standing with members of the American working class (who are equally disdained by Ms. Palin's detractors).

At the outset of these reflections, it was stated that the campaign against Ms. Palin was unprecedented . . . almost. The nation's history includes one notable precedent and the parallel with it is eerily striking. Andrew Jackson, another direct and plain spoken frontier character with similar communication, connection, and bonding gifts, also was viewed with fear and loathing, and viciously attacked by the silk stocking and wig wearing oligarchs of his time. His ascendancy to the White House brought ordinary working Americans into the political process -- something that at the time was viewed as mob rule but subsequently came to be known as the Jacksonian revolution.

Were they smarter and more prescient than they are, our current ruling class would be hoping for the early success of a similar revolution led by Ms. Palin or someone like her. The only alternative soon will be a far more dangerous kind of upheaval -- one in which a key role probably would/will be played by someone who is a modern version of Madame Defarge.

Fairness is being obstructed at the boundaries of rich Democrat voting precincts. It seems, according to this Wall Street Journal report, that the liberals ensconced inside those enclaves draw the line when it comes to paying their fair share in taxes.

Our country's oligarchy is become more open and less discreet about throwing its weight around and benefiting at the expense of ordinary citizens.

The nation's big financial institutions are a prime example. They gambled big time in the subprime mortgage business and on derivatives ultimately based on that house of cards. They and their executives raked in big bucks building that structure ever higher and making it increasingly unsound. When it fell, they were deemed "too big to fail" and were kept afloat with billions of dollars in taxpayer money from the public treasury, and their executives continued, and continue to be compensated in millions of dollars a year to enable them to keep on living large.

In addition to continuing to pay swollen executive salaries, the institutions used the bailout funds to expand their dominance of the market, eliminating competition by buying up smaller institutions. The government furthered, and is continuing to further the concentration of financial power by aggressively seizing and shutting down every smaller financial institution that shows signs of struggling and being in financial trouble. These smaller institutions hadn't paid the bribes -- a.k.a. campaign contributions -- on the scale that the bailout recipients routinely did and still do.

The net result of all this is that the institutions and their mismanagers responsible for creating the bubble that destroyed the economy -- taking the rest of the country into the tank -- when it burst are profiting enormously from behavior that appears to have been irresponsible from the outside.

Nor are the oligarchs sharing their good fortune. They are not making loans to small businesses struggling to survive as a result of the meltdown of the economic system that the institutions caused, and smaller financial institutions, -- those that thus far have survived -- cannot afford to take the risk of doing so.

Individual homeowners and small borrowers who experience any financial stress, get nothing but cold stares and stiff arms from the bailout recipients. Late fees and charges and increased late and default interest rates are piled on one after another as fast as applicable laws permit.

Atop the list of oligarchs is the Goldman Sachs investment banking firm. Its alums and other pooh bahs connected to it hold key positions in, and exercise virtual control over the federal government's financial policy making and oversight bodies. Is it any wonder that competitors of Goldman Sachs were allowed to fail even as other institutions of similar size were deemed too big to be permitted to do so?Other examples of the oligarchy in operation abound. Big businesses -- GM, Chrysler, GE, AIG to mention but a few examples -- get bailout money to stay afloat. Smaller enterprises such as GM and Chrysler dealerships and suppliers, and mom and pop operations are left to sink and die, victims of malign neglect.

Its a wonderful system from the standpoint of the oligarchs: socialism for the rich (except for their profits), and laissez faire free enterprise for the proles.

If the universal health care legislation now being tweaked in the House of Reprehensibles is such a great idea why are our rulers opting out of it?

Embedded in the bill is a provision exempting members of Congress and other select members of our ruling class from the health care provisions they want to impose on the rest of us . . . for our own good of course. The Reprehensibles are going to make the sacrifice of sticking with the gold plated health care they already enjoy rather than participating in what they plan for us proles.

Again, we're being hustled to support quick passage of the legislation before anybody really gets a good look at, and understanding of the proposal.

Here's the structure of what our rulers plan to bestow upon us to deal with:

Last month was the coldest June ever since temperatures have be recorded. That's right, high temperatures during the month were the lowest on record both in the U.S. and globally.

Could it be that the cooling is due to a decline in solar flare activity?

As a matter of fact, temperatures historically correlate far more closely with solar flare activity than with anything human beings do here on earth.

Never mind though. Hurry up an pass the crap and trash legislation before anybody has a chance to wise up on the global warming hustle. The government needs more control over all of us, and it needs the tax bonanza the legislation will produce at our expense and at the expense of crippling our economy.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

You were so right on when you scolded the general on TV for using the term, "ma'am," instead of "Senator." After all, in the military, "ma'am" is a term of respect when addressing a female of superior rank or position.

The general was totally wrong. You are not a person of superior rank or position. You are a member of one of the world's most corrupt organizations, the U.S. Senate, equaled only by the U.S. House of Representatives.

Congress is a cesspool of liars, thieves, inside traders, traitors, drunks (one who killed a staffer, yet is still revered), criminals, and other low level swine who, as individuals (not all, but many), will do anything to enhance their lives, fortunes and power, all at the expense of the People of the United States and its Constitution, in order to be continually re-elected. Many democrats even want American troops killed by releasing photographs. How many of you could honestly say, "We pledge our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor"? None? One? Two?

Your reaction to the general shows several things. First is your abysmal ignorance of all things militaire. Your treatment of the general shows you to be an elitist of the worst kind. When the general entered the military (as most of us who served) he wrote the government a blank check, offering his life to protect your derriere now safely and comfortably ensconced in a multi-thousand dollar leather chair, paid for by the general's taxes. You repaid him for this by humiliating him in front of millions.

Second is your puerile character, lack of sophistication, and arrogance which borders on the hubristic. This display of brattish behavior shows you to be a virago, termagant, harridan, nag, scold or shrew, unfit for your position, regardless of the support of the unwashed, uneducated masses who have made California into the laughing stock of the nation.

What I am writing, Senator, are the same thoughts countless millions of Americans have toward Congress, but who lack the energy, ability or time to convey them. Under the democrats, some don't even have the 44 cents to buy the stamp. Regardless of their thoughts, most realize politicians are pretty much the same, and will vote for the one who will bring home the most bacon, even if they do consider how corrupt that person is.

Lord Acton (1834 - 1902) so aptly charged, "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absol utely." Unbeknownst to you and your colleagues, Mr. Power has had his way with all of you, and we are all the worse for it.

Finally Senator, I, too, have a title. It is "Right Wing Extremist Potential Terrorist Threat." It is not of my choosing, but was given to me by your Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

The above is what a group of construction workers told a young and idealistic K. R. when, in his youthful days, he worked with them and tried to persuade them to participate in politics in support of individuals that K. R. believed were seeking to benefit the country and its people.

Now, some 60 years later, K. R. has come to realize the truth and wisdom that those blue collar laborers with limited schooling possessed.

As this report makes clear, they all really are in it for the money . . . for themselves. They indeed are all thieves and they have corrupted virtually all of our organizations and institutions.

Monday night Democrats voted to shut down the U.S. House Representatives rather than allow a handful of Republican Congressmen to speak on the floor. What could have been so offensive or frightening about our discourse that Speaker Pelosi felt she had to protect her party by gagging free speech in the House?

In fact, we had planned to speak on the lack of transparency of the House since Democrats took control. We had planned to criticize Speaker Pelosi for repeatedly denying Members, the media, and the public to right to read legislation before it was voted on. We were set to discuss House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s statement last week that if his Members were required to read the Democrats’ healthcare reform package before it was voted on, it would fail.

So the Speaker obviously feels that if the public is truly aware of her party’s agenda, they will reject it. She is now making sure the public is kept in the dark by trampling the centuries-old democratic traditions of the House.

What are those traditions? Every day that the House is in session, following the final vote of the day, representatives are allowed the privilege of free speech on the House floor in what is known as “Special Orders.” They may speak for one minute, five minutes, or one hour segments, and must request their time in advance. Time is allocated equally to both parties on a first-come basis.

Since the advent of live C-SPAN coverage of the House, this has provided a national televised outlet for both Republicans and Democrats to speak to the nation on topics they feel were not adequately addressed during regular order in the House, during which the Democrat majority has the parliamentary ability to limit debate and speeches.

Special Orders therefore frequently serves as a political safety valve if the party in the majority becomes too dictatorial during debate, using their majority status to truly oppress the minority's ability to debate and offer amendments.

That is now the case in the House, with the Democrat majority under Pelosi repeatedly rejecting House rules to ram a far-left agenda through before the public has time to learn what is actually in the bills.

This is what we were committed to bring to public light.

House rules require a bill be publicly posted for three days before it can be voted on. That basic rule was written by none other than Thomas Jefferson as part of the original rules package of the House, as it is essential to the survival of representative democracy.

The House can waive that rule if it chooses on specific occasions. The Republican-controlled House chose to waive it when considering the Patriot Act in 2001 following the terror attacks of 9-11. They thought there was enough of a national defense emergency to just bring the bill to the floor for a vote.

But Nancy Pelosi and her House Democrats have chosen to ignore the rule on every major issue taken up by the House this year, including:

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act - The Obama Stimulus: This one just had to pass that very day because time was a-wastin’ in getting those new jobs coming. We couldn’t wait for Members to read it. But then the President waited four days to sign it into law while he spent the weekend in Chicago, and months later none of the new jobs have come into existence.

The Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization (SCHIP): Speaker Pelosi couldn’t wait on this one either, although the deadline for reauthorization was still two months away.

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act: Lilly was peddled as covering decades-old wage discrimination cases, but after waiting 20 years, Congress couldn’t wait one more day to let Members actually read the thing.

The Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009: No excuses at all on this one. They just didn’t want the details known.

The Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009: This one has been languishing since last October, but we suddenly had to pass it that day.

The AIG Bonus Tax Act: This had to get through right then, don’t mind the details, we just had to go after those bonuses. Only when we read what passed after the fact, the bill contained waivers for all of the same executives the bill was supposed to reign in, many with curiously close ties to Treasury Secretary and tax cheat Tim Geithner.

The Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2009: No rush whatever on this one time-wise, the Democrats just didn’t want people talking about the hundreds of billions given to foreign banks that should have gone to our troops.

The American Clean Energy and Security Act/National Cap-and-Trade Energy Tax:No excuse was offered on this one, the Speaker just didn’t want anybody reading Henry Waxman’s 300 page amendment he sneaked in overnight before we were forced to vote. Three weeks later, the Senate shows no intention of taking up the bill before the opening day of dove season, if then.

There’s a reason all these bills are listed. The list constitutes every major policy bill undertaken by Congress this year. House Democrats are not just waiving the three-day rule -- they have destroyed it, and are intentionally pushing their agenda to the floor with blindfolds on the media and the public.

This constitutes an astonishing and chilling acceleration of the assault on representative democracy that began in earnest this January.

Representative democracy works when a U.S. Representative listens to the input of their constituents, and votes the way the majority of their district would vote. Only a Representative can’t listen if no one has ever seen the bill, or had time to provide input. They have to vote blind, which for too many, is voting the way their leadership tells them.

This is what Republican House Members were going to the floor to say Monday night. We were set to decry the loss of openness in the House.

Instead, we were met with a slammed door by Democrats, who are now committed to burying truth along with democracy.

The Democrats are the majority -- for now. They chose to silence debate on the floor by gagging House Republican Members from using their historical right to speak after the close of the day. But they cannot stop us from speaking outside the halls of Congress and letting the American public know the truth about their ongoing attack against the very foundations of a free Republic.

While our current president obviously relishes his role, he shows little interest in, and spends scant time on the details of governing. He prefers instead to travel the globe making grandiose pronouncement in an unending quest for adulation.

As an empty suit, he exists only as an object of such adulation, from which he draws delusions of adequacy.

He in fact is no more than a gifted and glib mimic aspiring to a role as a real actor. The effort invariably fails as it did when he attempted to pass himself off as a student of history only to immediately thereafter falsely describe historical events.

He apparently believes that his saying something makes whatever he says true. Thus his reality is bound by and limited to his rhetorical world.

This reflects an excess of unwarranted self esteem to the point of constituting pathological narcissism.

(This post is the result of, and basedona conversationwith the very perceptive and fearlessly directand honest producer of this kindred blog.)

Not having gotten what they wanted out of the first stimulus spending spree, our rulers are gearing up for more of the same, thus exhibiting once again that they either are mindless or possess minds akin to those of inquisition torturers who persisted until they got what they wanted or killed those from whom they sought confessions.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

It is hard to determine whether the diplomatic blunders of our apprenticing president are due to foreign policy foolishness and inexperience or a deliberate effort to diminish American influence and power in the world. In either case, our teleprompter-in-chief is pursuing a policy similar to that adopted by Jimmy Carter as a result of his confusing an established maxim. Consequently, he is naively seeking to enhance his international and domestic stature by punishing friends and rewarding enemies of the U.S.

It is bad enough that his pompous posturing is squandering the hard earned gains that prior presidents achieved. But, as this analysis makes clear, he also is selling out and putting at risk nations in eastern Europe that, upon gaining freedom from Soviet dominance, became allies of the U.S. in reliance on the power and willingness of the U.S. to protect their independence to do so. Sloughing off our obligations to these countries is sadly and shockingly immoral. It also is counterproductive as it demonstrates to all the world the unreliability and lack of steadfastness of America today.

There's not a hot enough place in hell for 'leaders' who send troops into harms way without an unshakeable commitment to utilizing all available means and resources to achieving absolute and total victory as expeditiously as possible.

It may be crass to point out how we've been suckered, but when our rulers tell us it's too soon to tell if the stimulus boondoggle is working because only a tiny portion of the allocated funds has been spent, recall, if you will, the time that there purportedly was a critical and urgent need to adopt the stimulus legislation RIGHT NOW . . . without delay.

The real need was to act before anyone has a chance to read and think about what was being enacted . . . and, as the following post indicates, they're getting ready to hustle us again.

Laura Tyson, an economic advisor to President Obama, is suggesting that the nation needs a major economic stimulus plan devoted to infrastructure spending to help the anemic economy recover. No, you’re not having déjà vu; the administration is laying the ground work for Stimulus II. Believe it or not, Tyson says the $787 billion stimulus bill was “a bit too small.”

In addition to our budget deficit, Washington is also suffering from a serious trust deficit. The trillion-dollar stimulus bill (it’s real cost with interest) was sold to the nation as an infrastructure plan full of “shovel ready” projects. We were told that if it passed, unemployment would not go above 8%. Well, infrastructure projects accounted for only 11% of the $787 billion, and unemployment today is 9.5%.

The bill wasn’t what Democrats told us it would be, nor has it done what they promised it would do. But now they are demanding a “redo.” I don’t know about you, but I want a refund!

Below are some excerpts from a New York Post article by Ralph Peters, a military and intelligence analyst who in 1998 retired from the U.S. Army as a lieutenant colonel:

“President Obama went to Moscow desperate for the appearance of a foreign-policy success. He got that illusion- at a substantial cost to America’s security. * * * We got nothing of real importance. But the government of puppet-master Vladimir Putin (nominally just Prime Minister) got virtually all it wanted. In Moscow, this was Christmas in July.

* * *

“[Obama] agreed to trim our nuclear warhead arsenal by one-third and-even more dangerously-to cut the systems that deliver the nuclear payloads. In fact, the Russians don’t care much about our warhead numbers (which will be chopped to a figure “between 1,500 and 1,675). What they really wanted-and got- was a U.S. cave-in regarding limits on our nuclear-capable bombers, submarines and missiles that could leave us with as few as 500 systems, if the Russians continue to get their way as final details are negotiated.

“Our problem is that many nuclear-delivery systems -- such as bombers or subs -- are ‘dual-use’: A B-2 bomber can launch nukes, but it's employed more frequently to deliver conventional ordnance. Putin sought to cripple our ability to respond to international crises. Obama, meanwhile, was out for ‘deliverables’ -- deals that could be signed in front of the cameras. Each man got what he wanted.”

* * *

“Our president also got some generalizations about North Korea and Iran, but no hard commitments. Russia-which designed many of Iran’s nuclear facilities- wouldn’t even promise to permanently deny Iran the sophisticated air-defense systems that would make it harder to hit Tehran’s nuke sites. * * * Great news for the Russian Federation. Bad news for America. Until an adoring media spins it of course.”

So not only did Putin play our feckless boy president for and as a Patsy (as indicated below in an earlier post), he also took his and our trousers . . . and our teleprompter-in-chief eagerly acquiesced in the process. It's no wonder they are laughing at us in the Kremlin -- it would be a source of hilarity here as well were it not placing us in danger.

"Nothing so strongly impels a man to regard the interest of his constituents, as the certainty of returning to the general mass of the people, from whence he was taken, where he must participate in their burdens."

Cannot help but wonder how much of the mess the country is in is attributable to our having come to have our public offices held almost exclusively by people who spend their entire lives on the public payroll. Worse yet, we're now seeing the development of European style dynasties -- successive generations for which office holding is the family business.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday that the health-care reform bill now pending in Congress would garner very few votes if lawmakers actually had to read the entire bill before voting on it. Hoyer laughed as he responded to a question from CNSNews.com about whether he supported a pledge that asks members of the Congress to read the entire bill before voting on it.

"If men of wisdom and knowledge, of moderation and temperance, of patience, fortitude and perseverance, of sobriety and true republican simplicity of manners, of zeal for the honour of the Supreme Being and the welfare of the commonwealth; if men possessed of these other excellent qualities are chosen to fill the seats of government, we may expect that our affairs will rest on a solid and permanent foundation."

Monday, July 6, 2009

Outside the Bristol Zoo, in England, there is a parking lot for 150 cars and 8 coaches, or buses. It was manned by a very pleasant attendant carrying a ticket machine, charging cars £1 (about $1.40) and coaches A£5 (about $7). This parking attendant worked there solid for all of 25 years.

Then, one day, he just didn't turn up for work.

"Oh well," said Bristol Zoo Management - "We'd better phone up the City Council and get them to send a new parking attendant..."

"Err . . . no", said Bristol Zoo Management, "The attendant was employed by the City Council, wasn't he?"

"Err . . . NO!" insisted the Council.

Sitting in his villa somewhere on the coast of Spain, is a bloke who had been taking the parking lot fees, estimated at A£400 (about $560) per day at Bristol Zoo for the last 25 years. Assuming 7 days a week, this amounts to just over A£3.6 million ($7 million)!

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Because the Chosen One, our Teleprompter-in-Chief, is succeeding in "spreading it around" ala the European socialist model for his progressive paradise nobody should be surprised that our unemployment rate has reached -- and probably will remain pegged at -- a level similar to those that are usual in places such as Belgium, France, Germany, etc.

This account indicates that even the tame White House press corps' Obama flacks may be starting to realize that neither they nor the media they represent are exempt from efforts of the fascist gang that comprises the current national administration to control everything and everybody in the country.

As Ben Franklin said: In wine there is wisdom,In beer there is freedom,In water there is bacteria.

In a number of carefully controlled trials, Scientists have demonstratedthat if we drink 1 liter of water each day, At the end of the year we would have absorbed More than 1 kilo of Escherichia coli, (E. Coli) - bacteria Found in feces. In other words, we are consuming 1 kilo of poop..

However, We do NOT run that risk when drinking wine & beer (or tequila, rum, whiskey or other liquor ) Because alcohol has to go through a purification process Of boiling, filtering and/or fermenting.Remember:Water = Poop,Wine = Health.Therefore, it's better to drink wine and talk stupid,Than to drink water and be full of shit.

There is no need to thank me for this valuable information: I'm doing it as a public service!

Kerr's Boss/Supervisor

About Kerr Mudgeon

A seasoned – meaning older than dirt — and usually bemused, observer of the passing scene, K.R. is often surprised, and occasionally angered by the antics of his fellow creatures. Kerr is a writer, private investor, independent businessman (for years did turnaround work, taking over failing businesses and restoring them to viability), defensive shooting and personal safety and security instructor/consultant, and a recovering attorney. Once head of a major law firm’s corporate practice, he currently restricts his legal work to matters that, or clients who for some reason interest him. More than a bit skeptical about the social utility of our legal system today, Kerr views most attorneys as beings whose souls died when they reached puberty although he treasures his contacts with the exceptions among them. In earlier incarnations, K.R. worked as a newspaper delivery boy, grocery store stockboy and bagger, assistant door-to-door salesman, construction worker (assistant roofer), commercial pilot, and newspaper reporter and editor. Kerr is an Eagle Scout and a combat veteran.

Contact K. R. Mudgeon:

Viewers of this blog can contact Kerr by e-mailing him at:

krmudgeon@comcast.net

or by leaving a comment after any post.

If you provide an e-mail address, Kerr will notify you as and when he posts new material unless, that is, you specify that you do not wish to receive such notifications. You also can have your address removed from the notification list at any time that your wish.

Timely Truths

“The Roman Republic fell not because of the ambition of Caesar but because it had already long ceased to be a republic at all. When the sturdy Roman plebeian, who lived by his own labor, who voted without reward according to his own convictions, and who formed in war the terrible Roman Legion had been changed into an idle creature who craved nothing in life save the gratification of a thirst for vapid excitement, who was fed by the state, and who sold his vote to the highest bidder, then the end of the republic was at hand, and nothing could save it.” . . . Theodore Roosevelt

"Corruptisima republica plurimae leges." (The more corrupt a republic, the more numerous its laws.). . . Tacitus

"Work is the curse of the drinking class.". . . Unknown

Observations, Wit, and Wisdom

When seconds count, the police are just minutes away.

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." . . . H. L. Mencken

The collection of clowns who hold sway atop Capitol Hill are divided into two bodies: the lower one is the House of Reprehensibles and the upper one is the U.S. Skanksty a.k.a. the House of Gasbags.

There are very few problems that cannot be solved through the judicious application of a sufficient quantity of high explosives.